This invention relates to coherent radiation sources of the type that are capable of continuous-wave, broadly tunable or pulsed operation and particularly such systems having those characteristics in the infrared portion of the optical spectrum.
The advent of the dye laser has produced substantial changes both in the approach to study of materials and in applied research for future optical display and data processing systems and, more distantly, for future optical communication systems. Because of the tunability of some dye lasers throughout the visible portion of the spectrum, applied research efforts on nonlinear optical coherent sources for tunable radiation in the visible spectrum have been de-emphasized.
Nevertheless, in the laboratory study of new materials and similar spectroscopy uses, tunable infrared coherent radiation is still provided by tunable nonlinear optical oscillators. Those nonlinear optical oscillators are extremely complex, are difficult to adjust and operate and are very costly. At present, there is no broadly accepted alternative in the nature of a dye laser for the infrared portion of the spectrum.